The black-and-white Polish film “Ida” dominated the European Film Awards on Saturday night in Latvia, winning the best-film award and also taking honors for its director, Pawel Pawlikowski, and its screenplay and cinematography.
It also won the EFA’s People’s Choice Award as the year’s best European film.
Nominees for the top prize were four foreign-language Oscar entries, “Ida,” “Force Majeure,” “Leviathan” and “Winter Sleep,” plus Lars von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac Director’s Cut – Volume I & II.”
Also read: Oscar’s Foreign Language Contenders, 2014: The Complete List
Timothy Spall was named Best European Actor for his performance in Mike Leigh’s “Mr. Turner,” while the European Actress award went to Marion Cotillard for “Two Days, One Night.”
The award for the best European comedy went to “The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer.”
The last two European Film Award winners were “The Great Beauty” and “Amour,” both of which went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. But the two awards have only coincided three other times in the EFA’s 26-year history, with the Europeans often giving their top honor to English-language films (“The Ghost Writer,” “The Full Monty”) or Oscar also-rans (“The White Ribbon,” “Gomorrah,” “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”).
The ceremony, which rotates between European cities each year, was held at the Latvian National Oscar House in Riga.
The winners:
European Film: “Ida”
European Comedy: “The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer”
European Director: Paweł Pawlikowski, “Ida”
European Actress: Marion Cotillard, “Two Days, One Night”
European Actor: Timothy Spall, “Mr. Turner”
European Screenwriter: Pawel Pawikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, “Ida”
European Documentary: “Master of the Universe”
European Discovery: “The Tribe”
European Animated Feature Film: “The Art of Happiness”
European Short Film: “The Chicken”
European Cinematographer – Prix Carlo Di Palma: Łukasz Żal, Ryszard Lenczewski, “Ida”
European Editor: Justine Wright, “Locke”
European Production Designer: Claus-Rudolf Amler, “The Dark Valley”
European Costume Designer: Natascha Curtius-Noss, “The Dark Valley”
European Composer: Mica Levi, “Under the Skin”
European Sound Designer: Joakim Sundstrom, “Starred Up”
Lifetime Achievement Award: Agnes Varda
European Achievement in World Cinema: Steve McQueen
People’s Choice Award: “Ida”